ber, 1850, sheared the self-constituted republic of its fair proportions, and reduced it to the infant condition of New Mexico, with the usual proviso in the organic act that when qualified for admission as states they shall become slave or free, as their respective Constitutions may prescribe. At present one of the principal Mormon grievances is that, although their country can, by virtue of population, claim admission into the Union, which has lately been overrun with a mushroom growth, like Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon, their prayers are not only rejected, but even their petitions remain unnoticed. The cause is, I believe, polygamy, which, until the statute law is altered, would not and could not be tolerated, either in America or in England. To the admission of other Territories, Kansas, for instance, the slavery question was the obstacle. The pro party will admit none who will not support the South, and vice versâ. Perhaps it is well so, otherwise the old and civilized states would soon find themselves swamped by batches of peers in rapidly succeeding creations.
The Mormons have another complaint, touching the tenure of their land. The United States have determined that the Indian title has not been extinguished. The Saints declare that no tribe of aborigines could prove a claim to the country, otherwise they were ready to purchase it in perpetuity by pay, presents, and provisions, besides establishing the usual reservations. Moreover, the federal government has departed from the usual course. The law directs that the land, when set off into townships, six miles square with subdivisions,[1] must be sold at auction to the highest bidder. The Mormons represent that although a survey of considerable tracts has been completed by a federal official, they are left to be mere squatters that can be ejected like an Irish tenantry, because the government, knowing their ability and readiness to pay the recognized pre-emption price ($1 25 per acre), fear lest those now in possession should become lawful owners and permanent proprietors of the soil.[2] Polygamy is here again to blame.
The Mormon settlements resemble those of the French in Canada and elsewhere rather than the English in Australia, the Dutch at the Cape, or the American squatters on the Western frontier. They eschew solitude, and cluster together round the Church and the succedaneum for the priest. In establishing these "stakes" they proceed methodically. A tentative expedition, sent out to select the point presenting the greatest facilities for settlements, is followed by a volunteer band of Saints, composed of farmers,
- ↑ Viz., the section of one square mile, the half section=320 acres, and the quarter section of 160 acres: the latter is the legal grant to military settlers. The preemption laws in the United States are just and precise; but in the mountains it is about as easy to eject a squatter as to collect "rint" from Western Galway in the days of Mr. Martin.
- ↑ In England and Scotland the rent for use of land averages one quarter of the gross produce; in France, one third; unhappy India gives one half; and the Territories of the United States nearly nothing.
